It was soon time to head to the airport to start my trip to Cuba. Madone59 dropped me off at San Diego International Airport where we bid each other farewell and I thanked him again for his hospitality and the great evening tour of San Diego.


My flights for the trip to Havana were:
Day 0: Flying JetBlue (JB) from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale (SAN-FLL).
Day 1: Flying JetBlue (JB) from Fort Lauderdale to Havana(FLL-HAV).
Day 5: Flying Delta Air Lines (AM) from Havana to New York (HAV-JFK).



I had wanted to travel to Cuba for many years but the distance from Dubai had meant that it was always low on my list of travel priorities. From San Diego however it was much more accessible so I had made plans after the conference to spend a few days in Havana.

My one-way Jetblue flight from San Diego to Havana via Fort Lauderdale was a reasonable $235. Jetblue is one of the few US airlines to not charge for checked baggage so fortunately there were no extra fees.

Check in was relatively straight forward and the check-in agent asked to see my return ticket and my reason for flying to Cuba. As I handed over my Delta ticket to New York and my NZ passport I simply told the agent I was travelling for tourism. US citizens are technically banned by the US government from travelling to Cuba for the purposes of tourism, however there are twelve categories of travel which are not prohibited (such as 'support for the Cuban people') and which are ambiguous enough that the tourism ban is not strictly enforced.

There was no queue for security and after passing through the body scanner I was through to the gate in no time.


The Jetblue A320 waiting at the gate.


We boarded on time for the 10:30pm departure and after putting in my ear plugs and putting on my eye mask I quickly dosed off to sleep.